Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 13
Later that afternoon Mr. Topper was trying on a cap. He was a diffident man about such things, but on this occasion his heart was in his task. The brownish thing that was making his head ridiculous had vague, temporizing lines in it of a nervous blue, but to Mr. Topper the cap was lovely. To a man or to a woman he would have said harshly that the cap “would do,” but to himself he had to admit it was lovely. He admired it hugely. It was a good cap. Mr. Topper had no difficulty in convincing the salesman that it was a good cap. With suitable apologies the man agreed that it was a very good cap and that it suited Mr. Topper well. Mr. Topper found himself admiring the salesman. He knew his business, this man — one of the few salesmen with unimpeachable taste. The cap was practically Topper’s. All the salesman had to do was to snatch it from Mr. Topper’s vainglorious head and wrap it up. Mr. Topper was willing. He had never purchased such a cap in his life. With the eager timidity of a virgin he hoped to demolish the record of years. He was brazen about it, yet he was shy almost to the point of tenderness. The cap was in the salesman’s hands. Mr. Topper was reaching for money. The salesman’s free hand was politely waiting for the object of Mr. Topper’s reaching. Then something happened. A new and different cap appeared in the salesman’s outstretched hand. With the instinct of his calling he automatically began to sell the new cap. Then he stopped in confusion and looked helplessly at Mr. Topper, who was convulsively clutching a roll of bills. Mr. Topper refused to meet the salesman’s gaze. Instead he glared at the new cap. It was a terrible cap, an obscene, gloating, desperate cap. Its red checks displayed the brazen indifference of deep depravity. Mr. Topper was revolted.
“Take it away,” he said. “I don’t want it.”
At this remark the new cap shook threateningly in the salesman’s hand. He tried to give it to Mr. Topper, but was unsuccessful. Mr. Topper backed away.
“I don’t want it,” he repeated. “I don’t like that cap. Please take it away.”
The salesman was deeply moved.
“I’m not trying to sell it to you, sir,” he said in a low voice, “but somehow I can’t help it.”
He stood before Mr. Topper with a cap in either hand. One cap he held almost lovingly, the other he clung to in spite of himself, like a man with a live coal in a nest of dynamite. His lips trembled slightly. He tried to smile. He was mortally afraid that at any moment Mr. Topper would depart with a bad opinion of the store. He could never permit that to happen. With an effort he turned away, but before he had gone many yards he abruptly swung around and came back at a dog-trot. To Mr. Topper he gave the appearance of a man who was being held by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers by someone intent on motivating him from the rear. He stopped suddenly in front of Mr. Topper and, in an attitude of supplication, offered him the red checked cap. Mr. Topper again refused it.
“I must apologize,” the man said rather breathlessly, “but I really think you had better take this cap.”
In spite of his irritation Mr. Topper regarded the salesman with quick sympathy.
“Why have you changed your mind?” he asked. “I’ve already told you that I hate that cap. It isn’t a nice cap. I don’t like it.”
The salesman was almost chattering. He shook himself like a dog and glanced quickly over his shoulder. Then he approached Mr. Topper.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he whispered. “I’ve lost my mind. It isn’t the store. It’s me. I’m mad.”
Mr. Topper was beginning to feel extremely sorry for the salesman. He wanted to do what he could, but he refused to be bullied into buying a cap he utterly loathed, a cap that went against all his instincts.
“It’s too bad about your mind,” said Mr. Topper, “but I don’t want that cap. I won’t buy it. And if I do buy it I won’t wear it. I’m honest about that.”
“Listen,” whispered the salesman. “I’ll give you the cap if you’ll only take it away.”
“If you’re as anxious as all that to get rid of the cap,” Mr. Topper replied, “I buy them both. How much are they?”
“Practically nothing,” said the salesman, his face clearing. “I’ll wrap them up myself.”
He hurried away.
“But I won’t wear it,” said Mr. Topper, addressing space. “You won’t be able to force the thing on my head.”
“Here they are,” announced the salesman, returning with the package. “You’ve been very nice about it, I’m sure.”
As the elevator bearing Mr. Topper to the ground floor began its descent a low gasp was heard in the car.
“I can’t stand these things,” whispered Marion Kerby “They always take my breath.”
At each floor the gasp was repeated, whereat Mr. Topper cringed under the curious eye of the operator. Mr. Topper pretended to gasp in order to protect himself. He smiled sickly at the operator and said:
“Did it affect you that way at first? It always does me.”
The operator continued to look at him but made no answer. He was glad to see the last of Mr. Topper. He was afraid that the man was going to swoon in his car.
On the train that evening Mr. Topper tried to hide himself in his newspaper, but was unsuccessful. Marion Kerby insisted on turning back the pages and scanning the advertisements. At last Mr. Topper abandoned the newspaper and looked out of the window. Presently he became conscious of the fact that several passengers were regarding the vacant seat beside him with undisguised interest. The newspaper was slanted against the air as though it were being held by unseen hands. Mr. Topper seized the paper and thrust it into his pocket.
“Rotter!” whispered Marion Kerby.
“Fiend!” muttered Mr. Topper.
A heavy personage attempted to occupy the seat, but arose with a grunt of surprise. For a moment he regarded Mr. Topper bitterly, but that distraught gentleman was gazing at the landscape with the greedy eyes of a tourist.
At the end of the trip he hurried home. His day had been crammed with desperate events. There would be nothing for him at home save Scollops, but at present Mr. Topper preferred a sleepy cat to an active spirit. He yearned for repose.
“Good-by,” said Marion Kerby as he was turning into the driveway. “I’ve had an awfully nice time and I want to thank you.”
“Why did you make me buy that cap?” demanded Mr. Topper.
“Because I knew it would look well on you,” she answered. “George had one once and everybody liked it.”
“Well, I don’t, and I won’t wear it,” said Mr. Topper. “Good-by.”
Marion Kerby clung to his arm.
“Don’t be angry,” she pleaded. “I’ve got to go back now and it’s going to be lonely out there without even George to haggle with. Say good-by nicely and call me Marion.”
Mr. Topper had a twinge of conscience. He was going away in the morning without even telling her about it. He was running away from her. Although he realized that he was in no way bound to Marion Kerby he nevertheless felt guilty in abandoning her, particularly in the absence of her irresponsible husband. However, if he confided in her everything would be ruined. She would be sure to come along. He knew he would never be able to drive her off. After all why should he not take her along? Then he remembered the events of the day and decided that there was every reason in the world for leaving her behind. He was going away for a rest and not a riot. With Marion Kerby with him rest would be out of the question.
“Well,” he said in a mollified voice, “it’s not going to be any too crisp for me at home, but I’ll look you up in a few days. We’ll take a ride together.”
“Good-by,” she said, her voice sounding strangely thin and far away. “Don’t forget. I’ll be waiting for you.”
The house had lost none of its funereal atmosphere during Mr. Topper’s absence. Mrs. Topper was sitting in the shadows with her hands folded in her lap. She was the picture of resignation.
“Are you feeling better, my dear?” asked Mr. Topper.
“I haven’t been thinking about myself,” she replied. “There are other things on my mind.”
Mr. Topper discreetly refrained from asking her what they were. He sat down and read the paper until the maid announced dinner, then he followed his wife into the dining room, where the evening meal was consumed in silence. He felt like a convict being entertained by a member of a Christian Endeavor Society. Mrs. Topper made it a point to see that he was properly served. She seemed to derive a sort of mournful pleasure in watching him chew his food.
When they were once more in the sitting room Mr. Topper announced the fact that he was going away for a trip. It was a difficult announcement to make and Mrs. Topper was not helpful. She listened in silence until he was through, then she said without looking at him:
“I hope that for my sake you’ll try to keep out of jail.”
“It’s not a habit,” replied Mr. Topper. “It was an accident, an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
Mrs. Topper bent over her sewing and compressed her lips.
“I’ll never forget it to my dying day,” she said. “The shame and humiliation of it.”
“You could forget it if you wanted to,” answered Mr. Topper. “If you liked me instead of yourself you could forget a lot of things.”
Mrs. Topper regarded her husband with melancholy eyes.
“You ask me to forget that?” she asked.
“Come, Mary,” replied Mr. Topper in an earnest voice. “I don’t know what got into me. I was all wrong, but just the same . . .”
He stopped and, pulling the step-ins from his pocket, began to mop his face with them. They were orchid-colored step-ins heightened in attractiveness by crimson butterflies and lace insertion. They gave Mr. Topper a foppish appearance. As he stood before his wife with his face nonchalantly buried in the silken fabric Mr. Topper looked almost giddy. A new light came into Mrs. Topper’s eyes. It was the light of despair masking behind outraged modesty. At the height of his mopping Mr. Topper must have realized the situation, for he suddenly withdrew his face from its tender concealment and peered at Mrs. Topper over the step-ins. Mrs. Topper had risen. As she confronted her husband she was trembling slightly. He tried to speak, but she held up a restraining hand.
“I refuse to remain in the room and have you flaunt your infidelity in my face,” she said. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t try to explain. Everything is perfectly clear.”
“But I bought them for you,” gasped Mr. Topper. “They were to be a surprise.”
“They were a surprise,” replied Mrs. Topper, recoiling from the offending garment. “They were a shock.”
As she left the room Mr. Topper hurled the step-ins to the table and departed to the garage, where he remained the rest of the evening. Scollops curled up on the evidence of guilt and tried to forget the late unpleasantness in sleep. When Mr. Topper returned to the house the step-ins had disappeared from the table. Upstairs a tear-stained woman was clutching them in her hand. Gradually her sobbing quieted and she looked timidly at the step-ins. Perhaps after all he had bought them for her. But she never wore such things. Mr. Topper knew it. Why didn’t she wear such things? She was startled. Perhaps that was the reason. With a feeling of guilt she slipped on the step-ins and looked at herself in the mirror. She thought they were vulgar and pointedly immoral, but in her heart she gloated over them. After all they were quite nice if worn in a proper manner and for an equally proper purpose. Beauty for beauty’s sake. She would have to consider step-ins and other things. Absorbed in these thoughts, her eyes traveled up the mirror and encountered her face. After a moment’s scrutiny she turned away, her shoulders drooping. She felt foolish and defeated. Desolation filled her heart. As she lay on the bed in her startling attire she looked like a bedraggled doll which some worldly person had dressed in a moment of caprice and then abandoned for other pursuits.
Her outburst of grief expended, she sprang up and, tearing off the offending garment, trampled it under her feet. Then quite reasonably she picked up the step-ins, carefully folded them and put them away for safe keeping. After this she prepared herself for bed and switched off the light. Later, when her husband wearily sank down beside her, she pretended to be asleep.
CHAPTER XIII
ESCAPE
BEFORE THE SUN had set Mr. Topper had left a trail of dust across his native state and carried warfare deep into the heart of Connecticut. Like a floating mine in an ocean lane he endangered the safety and ruined the happiness of all creatures who came his way. His intentions were above reproach had he been able to execute them, but in this he failed lamentably. He was a traveling display of frightfulness, a menace to moving traffic. The curses of his fellow creatures followed him down the road. He had never before realized how vindictive, how utterly given to fury, automobilists were. Sarcasm, insults and jeers, all were flung at Mr. Topper, and all found their mark. He shrank within himself and placed his destiny in the hands of God. But long hours of sustained driving effected a gradual change in his spirits, and towards sunset it was Topper who was shouting bitter oaths at passing automobiles. Each oath increased his confidence and self-respect until at last he came to regard with malicious pleasure the approach of another car, epithets fairly boiling on his tongue.
“They’ve tried to ruin my day for me,” he thought. “I might as well get back at them now.”
When not engaged in roadside altercations, Mr. Topper’s thoughts strayed back to home. He was heavily depressed to find that he lacked the thrill of escape.
In the early morning, under the stimulus of the previous evening’s scene, he had left his wife, his bed and the step-ins to settle the dispute among themselves, and stolen forth to the garage, where the secretly prepared automobile was waiting to carry him to liberty. As he passed through the sitting room Scollops, abandoned to sleep, was lying in his chair. Lying is hardly the word. Molded would be more descriptive of the cat’s contact with the yielding upholstery. Given a sufficient length of time, Scollops might have grown to the chair, so much a part of her had she made it already.
It was not without pride that Topper regarded his cat. She had selected his chair for her slumbers. Possibly she sensed he was near. Topper’s unconscious craving to be loved made him overlook the fact that his was the most comfortable chair in the room and being such naturally recommended itself to Scollops’ practical mind. His knowledge of cats was hardly more extensive than his knowledge of women. In some respects Topper was more fortunate than he realized.
He had stooped over the sleeping creature and run his hand along her luxurious side. A short, surprised bubbling sound signified that although she appreciated the attention she could do nothing about it at present, complete rest being her most urgent need. However, he could stand there and continue to stroke her if it gave him any pleasure. She rather enjoyed it.
Topper was now thinking of Scollops as he had last seen her. He was wondering whether he should have brought her along. Perhaps she might be forced to suffer vicarious atonement for his sins. That would be too bad. After due consideration he decided that an automobile was as much as if not more than he could well manage, and that Scollops would have complicated things to the breaking point. Yet the fact remained that he was lonely. He almost wished he had taken Marion Kerby along for at least the first stage of the trip, but when he recalled the humiliation of the previous day he felt glad that he had not given in to this weakness — nay, madness.
A slight misunderstanding with an interurban trolley car forced him to concentrate on the business of keeping alive, and when next he had time to glance at his surroundings he found with relief that he was in a town which gave the appearance of being large enough to support life.
The hotel was even more than he had hoped for or expected. It was so self-consciously modern that it wore an injured air. A negro bell boy fairly snapped at his bags and bore them away in triumph down a colonnaded hall. Mr. Topper, hardly less triumphant at having arrived intact at some destination, no matter where, followed at a more leisurely pace. Then it was that the hotel, or at least that part of it assembled in the lobby, received a decided shock. As Mr. Topper approached the desk two books pursued him down the hall. The negro bell boy on seeing the phenomenon dropped the bags and began to look for wires or for any other rational explanation of this unprecedented occurrence. Unable to find a comforting solution, he held on to the desk and shivered while looking pathetically at the clerk. Unfortunately for the bell boy the clerk was too much preoccupied with his own feelings to share his moral courage with others. By the strained attention of the clerk’s features Mr. Topper could tell that something was wrong. And when the two books thrust themselves under Mr. Topper’s arm he knew that all was wrong. He snatched at the books and offered them to the clerk.
“They’re not mine,” announced Mr. Topper, lyingly. “You’d better take care of them.”
“I won’t touch them,” replied the clerk, withdrawing from the books.
“Well, you take them,” said Mr. Topper, turning to the bell boy. “Someone here must own them.”
The bell boy shivered himself out of reach.
“They followed you,” he muttered. “They didn’t follow me. I don’t read, boss. Please point those books the other way.”
“Damn it, then, I’ll throw them here,” exclaimed Topper, tossing the books into a chair. “Give me a room and bath.”
The clerk, still eying the books suspiciously, reached for a key and handed it to the reluctant bell boy.
“Take him away,” he said, briefly.
As Topper turned to follow his bags he cast a swift, pleading glance at the abandoned books.
“Don’t follow me,” he muttered. “This is serious.”
